


A Proposal

by EbonyKnight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 02:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12854622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyKnight/pseuds/EbonyKnight
Summary: Mycroft hasn't been himself all week, and Greg wants to know why.Absolute fluff. I'd apologise, but I'm really not sorry.





	A Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. That would be tremendously ambitious of me. 
> 
> Written on holiday whilst in excellent company but possibly having drank too much wine.
> 
> Feedback is always welcome.
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful RomanyWalker.

“Anyway, to cut a long story short, I arrested Jack the Ripper for the murder of Santa Claus this afternoon. I reckon I’ve got enough to pin the Easter Bunny on him, too. The paperwork’s going to be a bitch, but it’s bound to be for a collar like that,” Greg said, attention wholly on the man sitting on the other side of the table. When there was no response, not as much as a flicker, he gently tapped Mycroft’s ankle with an annoyed, “Hey, are you with me?”

“Hmm?” the other man replied, awareness returning to his eyes. “Oh, yes, I imagine it will be.”

With a determined effort not to roll his eyes, Greg sipped his wine. It was very nice wine, but it did nothing to assuage his annoyance. His partner had been distracted and distant for the best part of a week, yet had persistently denied that anything was wrong to the point of growing irritable at being asked. “Do you actually want to be here, or is this just habit?” he snapped, gesturing vaguely at the expensive restaurant around them. The second Friday of the month had been their ‘date night’ for as long as they’d been a couple, a tradition dating back further to the days of Mycroft trying to frighten him into looking after Sherlock, and Greg had hoped that dinner at his favourite restaurant would be enough to snap the other man out of his funk.

“Of course not; what a ridiculous thing to suggest.” Mycroft almost - _almost_ \- sounded normal, but to Greg, who flattered himself to think that he truly knew the younger man, he was definitely missing the mark. “I apologise. What were you saying?”

“Ridiculous, is it?” Greg pressed, deciding that enough was enough. “You’ve barely said a word since you got here and you’ve not touched your dinner. You’ve barely touched me since before last weekend, either, come to that. What the hell am I meant to think?”

“I suppose I have been somewhat preoccupied. I apologise, Greg,” Mycroft said, finally cutting into his steak.

Greg laid down his cutlery and settled back in his chair, looking his partner straight in the eye. “No, Mycroft; preoccupied is wearing a Wednesday tie with a Thursday suit, or forgetting to phone your mum after Sunday dinner. This,” he gestured between them, “is a bit more than ‘preoccupied’. If it’s about us, at least do me the honour of bloody telling me.”

“I—” Mycroft carefully laid down his own cutlery. “There is something that I’ve been meaning to discuss with you, actually.” He paused and adjusted the position of his knife, bringing it perfectly into line with the fork.

“You’re going to have to at least give me a clue,” Greg prompted impatiently when Mycroft didn’t immediately continue, hearing the worry ringing loud and clear in his voice. “I can’t look at your tie and deduce that you had a rough meeting, and your left shoe hasn’t once told me that Sherlock turned up and caused hell at work.”

A tense silence stretched out between them for an unbearably long moment, until his partner suddenly said, “Tell me, how do you feel about marriage?” whilst fiddling with the stem of his wine glass in an uncharacteristic display of discomfiture. 

Whatever he had been expecting to hear, _that_ certainly wasn’t it. _“Marriage?”_ he asked, heart racing and needing clarification.

Mycroft inclined his head, a very faint flush staining his cheeks. “You and I marrying, clearly. Formalising our relationship, if you will.”

The restaurant around them melted away and Greg gripped the edge of the table in an attempt to ground himself. “Are you proposing to me?”

“Yes,” came the stilted, almost defiant reply. “I’ll understand if you’d rather not, of course, but it does seem to be the logical thing to do at this stage.”

It took a long moment for Greg to process Mycroft’s proposal, and when it did he felt some of the tension he’d been carrying bleed out of him. “You’re not ditching me?”

A brief flash of consternation stole across Mycroft’s face. “Why on earth would you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Greg replied, reaching for his drink; he had a feeling that he’d be needing it. “I’ve seen more of your brother than I have of you this week, and when you _have_ been around it’s like you’ve been on another planet. God knows you’ve got it all on at work with the Brexit bullshit, but you’ve not even been waiting for me to get up before leaving in the morning. I’m missing my morning kiss, Mycroft.”

“Do you not think that I would have said something sooner had I planned to end our relationship?” Greg bit back his instinctive response, but Mycroft must have read it anyway; he reached across the table and grasped the hand with which Greg was not holding his glass. “I am not a nice man, Greg; if I felt that our relationship had run its course, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you in a misguided attempt at sparing your feelings.”

“Right,” Greg replied, relieved. He wasn’t sure that that should have been reassuring, but it was. “So you’ve been off for the last week or so because you want to marry me and not chuck me?”

“Yes,” came the stiff response. 

“ _Why?_ Since when do you want to get married?” The Holmes brothers had a bloody annoying habit of proving him wrong, but he’d have sworn uphill and down dale that Mycroft wasn’t the marrying type. It had taken him almost six months to stop denying the nature of their relationship to Sherlock, after all, though Greg suspected that it had become something of a Holmesian game in the end.

“Because it is something which we both want, and I see no reason for us not to have it.” Mycroft reached for his glass. “I confess that I didn’t realise quite how important it is to you until your niece’s wedding last weekend, but your expression as the vows were exchanged spoke volumes.”

Greg sighed, watching a waitress deliver pudding to the table to his partner’s right, hoping that his disappointment wasn’t _too_ obvious. “I’m not marrying you because you think I need it, love. That’s not how it works. I appreciate the offer, but—”

“—Really, Greg,” Mycroft interrupted. “When have you ever known me to do something that I do not wish to? No, marrying isn’t something that I’ve seriously considered in the past, but once I did…well, the thought of being your husband was unexpectedly appealing. As I said, this is something which _we both_ want.” 

Heart soaring, Greg took Mycroft’s hand across the table and entwined their fingers. “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, at least move in together first? You know, try before you buy and all that. I’m not tidy like you, and I fart in bed, and Pauline constantly moaned about me leaving boxers and towels lying around, even when I was trying not to.”

Mycroft was wearing the kind of soft, warm smile generally reserved for him and Sherlock. “You last spent a night at your own flat when we argued about which portrayal of Dracula is best, and there are enough spare rooms at home that that needn’t happen again, I know that you pass wind in bed, and I know that you leave your underwear and damp towels on the bathroom floor. I also know that I love you and would be honoured to be your husband.” He lifted his glass with his free hand, and Greg was gratified to see a slight tremor, which made him feel better about the way his own heart was pounding; Mycroft negotiated God knew what with who fuck knew who on a daily basis, and seeing that he was as affected by the moment touched something deep inside.

“Right,” he replied, not quite believing it was actually was happening. His partner was looking at him expectantly across the table, and it took a long moment for Greg to realise that he was waiting for an answer. Deciding that he needed at least _some_ revenge for the stress and worry of the past week, regardless of the reason, he worked hard to keep his expression blank and tone bland. “Was there a question in there somewhere?”

The icy glare Mycroft directed at him was rendered completely ineffective when he tightened his hold on Greg’s hand. “Greg, will you marry me?”

A relieved, slightly giddy laugh escaped and Greg replied, “Yes. Now, how about you take your fiancé home? I believe we have a deal to seal.”

Mycroft released Greg’s hand and stood, dropping his napkin onto his still-full plate, then stepped around the table and held out his left hand. “Shall we?” 

As he took hold of his fiancé’s hand and rose, Greg silently mused that the ring finger would soon be bearing evidence of their commitment to each other and smiled. 

His smile lasted until they reached the door of the restaurant, when Mycroft turned to look at him wearing a shark-like smirk that bode nothing but Ill and said, “Sherlock will be _delighted_ to be gaining a brother in law."


End file.
